The Pope must clean himself of history’s stain

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Questions are being asked about the new pontiff’s attitude to the Argentine junta. He should condemn or confess

In January 1944 a young German officer named Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist told his father that he was facing “a very difficult decision”. Kleist was due to meet the Führer to show him a new set of uniforms. Claus von Stauffenberg, the leader of the anti-Nazi resistance of which both father and son were members, had asked Kleist to take a bomb into the meeting and detonate it.

“Of course you have to do it,” said his father.

The young man pointed out that the bomb might remove Hitler, but it would also kill him.